Updates on life in Japan

Day 316.2 Yen for NPP-friendly profs, but none for Fukushima’s children

Hmm. If the gov’t and energy companies had funneled funds into a savings account to be used in just such an emergency instead of giving it to nuclear industry-friendly academia, they would have 10,487,640,000 yen to donate to this.

Japanese gov gave up giving free medical care for Fukushima children

Japanese prime minister Noda decided not to give free medical care for Fukushima children though they were preparing for the request of Fukushima local government. The reason is because they don’t have enough budget.
The current cabinet estimate it to be about 10 billion yen, but they were afraid it might be increased. They also assumed it would be difficult to collect doctors to want to go to Fukushima.
The headquarters of re-construction center also says that would be unfair for other prefectures to give free medical care even just to normal cold.

The news of the worst-case scenario report submitted to the Kan administration by the Japan Atomic Energy Commission in March last year has already been reported, as I wrote on my January 2 post, but a little bit more information is coming from Kyodo News now.

It turns out that the Kan administration not only sat on the report detailing the worst-case scenario of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant accident, but it declared the report wouldn’t exist from then on, and didn’t even officially recognize its existence as part of the government documents until December last year when the news of the report finally leaked. On the New Year’s Eve.

The government kept a worst case scenario for the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant under wraps for months after the document was shown to a small group of policymakers in late March, government sources said Saturday.

A private-sector panel looking into the nuclear disaster plans to probe whether the government tried to manipulate information in handling the crisis, by interviewing then Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Goshi Hosono, environment minister who was then adviser to Kan, among other figures. Hosono was in charge of handling the nuclear crisis.

The document, created by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo at Kan’s request, said that in a worst case scenario, radioactive materials would intermittently be released in massive quantities for roughly a year if all workers had to be evacuated from the plant, some 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

Radioactive materials have intermittently released for nearly a year, both into the atmosphere and into rivers and the Pacific Ocean.

As you see in the photo below, the report was neatly presented, with colored charts and graphs. Let’s see if anyone in the media or the government cares to upload this report.

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The government kept a worst case scenario for the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant under wraps for months after the document was shown to a small group of policymakers in late March, government sources said Saturday.

A private-sector panel looking into the nuclear disaster plans to probe whether the government tried to manipulate information in handling the crisis, by interviewing then Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Goshi Hosono, environment minister who was then adviser to Kan, among other figures. Hosono was in charge of handling the nuclear crisis.

The document, created by Japan Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Shunsuke Kondo at Kan’s request, said that in a worst case scenario, radioactive materials would intermittently be released in massive quantities for roughly a year if all workers had to be evacuated from the plant, some 220 kilometers northeast of Tokyo.

After being shown to a small group of senior government officials at Kan’s executive office in late March, the document was treated as if it never existed, the sources said, adding that it was not until the end of last year that the document was recognized as an official one.

Gov’t not adding up nuclear workers’ radiation doses when not at work

TOKYO (Kyodo) — The health ministry has not added up the radiation doses received by workers at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant while they were evacuated or are not at work, ministry officials and supporters of the workers said Saturday, prompting concerns about adequacy of the current radiation control.

In a similar manner, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will not add up radiation doses while workers engage in decontamination efforts around the badly damaged plant in Fukushima Prefecture, which will intensify in the near future.

The ministry currently keeps track of only the radiation doses for nuclear workers when they engage in work. The maximum radiation doses for nuclear workers and those involved in decontamination efforts are 100 millisieverts over five years and 50 millisieverts a year.

NHK reported the risk of internal exposure in June 2009

NHK broadcast a TV program about internal exposure risk of the victims by Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs though they keep reporting it’s not risky since 311.

In 2009.6, NHK broadcast a TV program to all over Japan, which was about the damage caused by internal exposure.
On the TV show, NHK introduced the picture of alpha ray emit from a particle left in a cell, which is Plutonium. It was the first photograph to capture the actual radiation to damage a cell from the inside in the world, taken by an assistant professor Shichijo Kazuko from Nagasaki University.
It was from a sample of a person who died of atomic bomb. The cell is still left damaged though it has been longer than 60 years since atomic bomb was dropped and the person has already died.
The TV show also introduced the fact that even though they take out the part of skin cancer, the surrounding skin cells look normal but the DNA is actually damaged.
They even call it a “death ash” to avoid touching but now they are making us eat it.

Rising construction costs are becoming an obstacle to the smooth rebuilding of many quake and tsunami-affected regions, sources close to the industry say.

Surging demand for the building of new houses and repairing damaged ones in areas affected by the disaster has led to price increases for all construction resources, including materials, transportation, and labor. Some people have gone as far as to refer to the situation as a “reconstruction bubble.

Japanese Struggle to Protect Their Food Supply

Published: January 21, 2012

Setsuko Suzuki, 56, of Fukushima, took cabbage and rice to a citizens’ radiation testing center.

Onami sits just 35 miles northwest of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which spewed radioactive cesium over much of this rural region last March. However, the government inspectors declared Onami’s rice safe for consumption after testing just two of its 154 rice farms.

Corporations are leaving Tepco for the increasing electricity price

Corporations to buy electricity from Tepco are starting to leave Tepco since they announced to raise the fee.

SMBC Nikko securities estimate the raised electricity cost will decrease ordinary profit about by 1.5% of all the companies in Japanese stock market.

More companies are starting to buy electricity from Power Producer and Supplier (PPS), who are new entries to the power industry.

Since 2000, Tepco has already lost its share of 4.1 kW for PPS companies. It will be accelerated.

Kose, a cosmetic company has decided to invest a few hundred million yen into off-grid power system of their major factory in Gunma so they can cover around the half of the electricity consumption when it’s the maximum. They estimate still it would be cheaper than buying electricity from Tepco.

Just for the record, the thermometer at the CRD Housing Upper Part of the Reactor Pressure Vessel of Reactor 2 is completely kaput (or DS, down scale), and the last measurement on January 19 was -197.1 degrees Celsius, or -322.78 degrees Fahrenheit.